


it only makes it worse

by myeyesarenotblue



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, and the commission doesn't like it, no beta we die like ben, uhh there's a new miracle pregnancy basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:29:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22314847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myeyesarenotblue/pseuds/myeyesarenotblue
Summary: “Holly fucking shit!” Klaus says, and he means it.The girl’s-The girl’s pregnant.She wasn't pregnant when she first got in the elevator.
Comments: 40
Kudos: 213





	it only makes it worse

“Yeah, yeah, I’m leaving- no need to call the cops on me” Klaus mutters, hastily backing away while shooting the librarian the dirtiest look he can manage. “But I’m outraged, dude, I thought this was a free country!” 

The old lady glares, straightens up her glasses. “I don’t care about freedom, boy. I won’t tolerate people smoking marihuana in my library” 

“ _Marihuana-_ ” Klaus feigns a gasp. “I did not smoke such a thing! Where did you get such a heinous idea?” 

“Did you just call her _dude_?” Ben asks, frowning, very much talking over him. “She’s like ninety” 

The librarian glares. 

Klaus ignores them both. This is exactly why he doesn’t leave the house unless it’s strictly necessary anymore. One second you’re minding your own business, holding a random book open for your dear dead brother to read and rolling a joint for _later_ (he didn’t even light it up, honest) _,_ and the next- 

Bam! 

Random old lady kicking you out. 

“Weed’s basically legal, anyway” Klaus says, just to be annoying. 

The librarian narrows her eyes. “I’m going to count to three, and then I want you gone” 

Klaus sighs as dramatically and theatrically as humanly possible as he turns around on his heel. “Fine, fine, I get it, I know how it is,” he says, louder than necessary. Some people turn their heads at the sound of his voice from where they’re sitting in their random tables with their random books. “Kick the poor guy out of the library, the poor veteran, the poor recovering addict, the poor-” 

“Out, now!” 

Ben laughs, the bastard. 

But Klaus knows when to admit defeat and this is it. He staggers through the library's hallways, Ben at his feet, until he’s standing in front of a nice elevator, and pushes the little button in the wall to call it. He twirls around on the spot as he waits for it to show up. 

“Who would’ve thought that old people are so against drugs?” Klaus says conversationally, sighing. 

“Anyone with braincells is against drugs, Klaus” Ben tells him, very matter of factly, while raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Why are you taking the elevator, anyway? I thought you didn’t like small spaces” 

“Uh, because you made me go up like thirty floors just to get a book?” Klaus replies, glaring at Ben. There’s no way in hell he’s taking the stairs _again_ , he’d literally die from exhaustion. “We have books at home, Benjamin, you could read one of those” 

“I’m pretty sure it was only six floors” Ben mutters. 

Klaus opens his mouth to reply, but before he can get the words ‘ _six floors are enough make me cry, asshole’_ out, there’s a little high-pitched _ding!_ and the elevator's doors burst open in front of them. 

He takes a deep breath and walks in, because, yeah, Ben’s a hundred percent right, Klaus fucking hates small spaces. It’s probably a nice little souvenir left over from his time shoved inside the mausoleum, or his time shoved inside a truck and a closet while kidnaped, or his time sharing tiny tents with a fuck load of unknown men in Vietnam. 

Who the fuck knows, really? Klaus only knows that the second he steps foot inside the elevator, he feels like the walls are closing in on him, like if he doesn’t get out sometime in the next ten seconds, then he’s going to start screaming and crying and maybe even peeing his pants. But then again... 

_Six floors._

“You okay, man?” Ben asks beside him, watching him with a concerned expression. 

Klaus nods courtly. “Yeah, just dandy, baby bro” 

Ben frowns. 

Klaus pushes the button to take them to the right floor, and that’s that. 

Except, except he hears hurried footsteps followed by someone shouting, “Hey, hey, stop, hold it, please!” 

And well, Klaus is nothing but a gentleman. Mostly. 

He holds the elevator’s door open just in time for a girl around his age wearing a pretty yellow sundress to get in. “Evening, ma'am” Klaus tells her, just to focus on literally anything else but how much smaller the place seems to be once the doors are locked. “I bid thee welcome to the world’s shittiest elevator” 

The girl gives him a _look_. 

Okay then, Klaus thinks to himself, no pleasantries. 

Ben snorts beside him, shuffling closer to leave room for her. 

The elevator groans to life, and the exact same second that it begins to move, the lights start flickering ominously from above accompanied by the most horrifying screeching noise that Klaus has ever heard in his life (-and he grew up with his siblings’ temper tantrums and Five’s failed science experiments. 

The ghosts, too. 

Klaus _knows_ about awful screeching noises). 

He whimpers, forces himself to take a deep breath and count up to ten. He just said it out of the top of his mind but turns out that this _is_ the world’s shittiest elevator. 

God, Klaus should’ve taken the stairs. 

He shuts his eyes tightly, because the flickering lights sort of remind him of the ghosts in the mausoleum, the way they’d appear and reappear, shifting, crying, screaming, jumping up and down in front of him without a break- 

“Uh, Klaus?” Ben says, his voice weirdly restrained. 

Klaus keeps his eyes shut. “What do you want, Benny-boy?” 

Ben doesn’t reply. 

There’s a noise beside him, like a sharp intake of breath, a pained moan, and Klaus realizes with a startle that it’s not coming from Ben. No- it’s coming from the random girl that got in the elevator with him. He opens his eyes and turns to ask her what’s wrong, but then- 

“Holly fucking shit!” Klaus says, and he means it. 

The girl’s- 

The girl’s pregnant. 

Her belly’s swollen round, completely gigantic and big and broad, her yellow sundress stretched so damned wide that the little drawings of its white flowered pattern look almost unrecognizable around her stomach. The girl’s staring at her belly with a shocked, almost dazed expression, her breathing so loud and panicked that Klaus fears she’s going to start hyperventilating. 

He stares at her, cocking his head to the side; he stares at her and lets the realization that she definitely wasn’t pregnant when she got into the elevator wash over him. 

Huh. 

Klaus can almost hear Dad’s monotone voice repeating the same story over and over for the papers: _“On the 12th hour of the first day of October 1989, 43 women around the world gave birth. This was unusual only in the fact that none of these women had been pregnant when the day first began. Myself, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, resolved to locate and-”_

There’s a gush of clear liquid trailing down the girl’s legs, pooling by her feet, and she starts screaming while clawing desperately at her stomach. What’s that thing pregnant women get? 

Her belly starts contracting, clenching and unclenching almost comically fast. 

Oh, right- _contractions_. 

“Klaus, do something” Ben says, with an unnerved look on his face. 

“What the fuck am I even supposed to do?” Klaus half-mutters, but he stagers towards the girl anyway, kneeling beside her when she abruptly drops to the floor in her panic or pain or whatever. 

“Hey, hey, girl, ma’am-” Klaus starts saying, his hands hovering over her belly while she keeps happily screaming. All he can see is that yellow sundress. “Ma’am, lady, take a- uh, take a deep breath, I guess?” 

“Take a deep breath?” Sundress parrots back, taking a break from her screaming with far more hatred than a girl lying in the dirty floor of an elevator has any right to have. Klaus is kind of intimidated. “ _Take a deep breath_?” 

Okay, yeah, Klaus isn’t helping. 

But he only has to keep her alive until the elevator reaches the bottom floor! 

He turns to look at the little screen in the corner, the one that announces in which floor the elevator from hell is at. There’s a big number four on it. 

_Ha! It’s my number!_ Klaus notes hysterically. 

He keeps his eyes glued to the screen. 

_4_

_3_

_2_

_Yes, yes, just one more floor and-_

Out of the fucking blue, the elevator comes to an abrupt halt. So abrupt, that Klaus is pretty sure he would’ve fallen face-first if he hadn’t been already on the floor. The lights flicker once more and then they stay off, leaving the space completely dark. 

“Oh, no” Klaus says, standing up so fast he accidentally knocks his head against the side of a wall. He can’t see, he can’t see, and he can’t move. “No, no, no, no-” 

“Klaus, relax” Ben’s calm voice says, from- _somewhere_ , somewhere Klaus can’t make out, because _he can’t see._ “Just find the emergency button” 

Klaus doesn’t bother to reply. Instead, he lurches forwards wildly, touching around the elevator’s control panel and squinting through the dark until he makes out the bright red button with the words _push in case of emergency_ written in bright bold letters. 

His finger hovers over the button, and just when he’s about to push it, _“No, no, please, no!”_ someone’s voice carries from outside the elevator, followed by muffled, panicked yelling and- 

_Bang._

Gunshot. 

Klaus’ blood runs cold. 

He knows the sound of a gunshot; he’d recognize it anywhere. He just didn’t think he’d ever have to recognize it in a goddamned _public library_. 

Something in the elevator kicks into action with a soft hum and an eerie red light filters through. Backup generator? Maybe. Not strong enough to start the elevator back again, but strong enough to shine light into Ben and the girl’s terrified and confused expressions. 

“Okay, okay,” Klaus says, pulling his finger away from the emergency button. He wills his heartbeat to slow down. It doesn’t. “I guess we’re staying here, then” 

“Shit” Ben says. 

“Shit, indeed, brother dear” Klaus replies, fighting the urge to huddle into a corner, shut his eyes, cover his ears, and cry. He _really_ should've taken the stairs. 

Sundress makes her presence known from where she’s still lying on the floor, “Who the fuck are you talking to?” 

“My conscience” 

She glares at him, but the effect is lost when her stomach contracts once again and she starts screaming. Klaus watches as she claps her hands over her mouth just time to let the commotion from inside the building overshadow her whimpering. 

_Bang, bang, bang, bang-_

It’s more than one shooter, Klaus realizes numbly. 

It’s got to be at least ten different people, all shooting with no mercy at the exact same time at anything that moves, at random people, at innocent people. He can hear the horrifying noises, the noises of people running wildly, screaming, crying out, and begging for their lives. 

“Why is this happening?” Sundress whispers to herself, once the chaos has more or less quieted down. She looks completely scared out of her wits, and Klaus doesn’t know whether she’s talking about the shooting or the random pregnancy. 

Maybe both. 

Ben stagers towards him, he looks worried. “Klaus, I’m gonna go see what’s going on” 

“Yeah, yeah, knock yourself out” Klaus says. He sort of doesn’t want Ben to leave him alone though, but they should probably figure out what’s going on, right? Figure out how to get out alive and all that shit. 

Ben phases through the elevator’s tightly shut doors and Klaus is left alone. 

Well, mostly. 

“Son of a bitch!” the girl yells out, lifting her dress up desperately. 

Klaus covers his eyes in a quick motion. “Oh, no, no, no, what are you doing?” his voice comes out stupidly high pitched, but he doesn’t even care. “Put that back down, miss! Don’t be unholy!” 

Sundress huffs out, “ _It’s coming_ ” 

“What’s that supposed to-” 

But, yeah, right. 

Miracle pregnancy, or- whatever. Maybe miracle is the wrong word, but no one ever gave Klaus an explanation for his own or his siblings’ random and bizarre births, so- 

Miracle. 

Miracle baby. He’s sticking with that. “Uh, can’t you hold it in?” 

A scream is ripped from her throat, and Klaus is afraid the shooters are going to hear them and somehow break into the elevator and murder them. He waits a beat, his mind going a mile a minute thinking of all the best ways to convince that little girl in the sky to kick him out of the afterlife again. 

He waits a beat, but no one comes. 

The shooters don’t find them. 

“ _It’s coming_ ” Sundress repeats, when she’s done screaming. 

Klaus risks a glance towards her crotch (she isn’t wearing any underwear, and there’s got to be at least ten different jokes about that somewhere but Klaus is a little too freaked out to think them up), he risks a glance and- 

“Christ on a cracker, that’s disgusting!” he says, swallowing down the bile that suddenly gathers in his mouth. “Oh my God, cover that up!” 

“Help me!” Sundress begs, whimpering, and _yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t be an asshole Klaus_ , he thinks, _don’t be an asshole_ , but- 

There’s _something_ round and bloody and disgusting poking from out of her, making the shape of her poor, poor vagina look like a piece of mangled meat and okay, okay, Klaus is absolutely never going to be able to even think about getting down and dirty with someone with a vagina ever again without seeing _that_ flashing in front of his eyes. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay” Klaus says, kneeling in front of her. “Just, uh, push?” 

The girl’s breathing heavily, digging her nails into the meat of her tights, trashing around wildly and looking at Klaus like he’s the most idiotic human being alive. 

Maybe he is, all things considered. 

Just in that moment, Ben phases through the doors once again. 

“Klaus, you need to get out right now, I think these guys are from-” he starts, looking immensely disturbed, but then his eyes zero in on the girl’s spread legs and Klaus watches him go through the five stages of grief. 

Klaus cries out, “Ben, help!” 

“What do you want _me_ to do?” Ben asks, looking like he’d rather be literally anywhere else but here. That makes two of them. 

“Just-” Klaus gestures wildly towards the girl’s crotch. He really, really, really doesn’t want to get anywhere near that. “You’re far better at first aid” 

“I’m dead, dipshit” 

“ _Who are you talking to?_ ” Sundress wails, looking far more exasperated and exhausted than she did two seconds ago. “There’s no one there!” 

Klaus watches dazedly as another contraction goes through her, clenching her muscles and making her cry out. The- the head ( _holy shit, that’s an actual person in there_ ) that’s poking out of her starts shifting, moving, and when Sundress starts pushing, it just straight up pops out. 

“Oh, no, no, no” Klaus says, because he has to grab it, right? He has to touch that thing. “Why the fuck do these things keep happening to me?” 

Ben makes a choked noise, like he’s going to puke or something and then promptly walks out of the elevator without looking back. Klaus stares incredulously at the empty space. “Come back, asshole! Don’t leave me like this!” 

But Ben doesn’t come back and Sundress keeps crying out and pushing and pushing, and Klaus, he takes a deep breath and tries to think of sunshine, and rainbows, and unicorns, and cocaine, or something, and he grabs the tiny head and tiny shoulders as they fight their way out. _It’s gross, it’s gross, it’s gross, it’s gross-_

Fuck, fuck, all that time Klaus spent resenting his bio-mom for selling him to Sir Reggie Mc-Douchebag? He gets it now, he _abso-fucking-lutely_ gets it now! 

He would’ve done the exact same thing after _this_. 

He decides to do the smart thing and zone the fuck out, looking straight at the ceiling and trying not to think too hard about how goddamned wet and slippery and disgusting the baby feels, sticky with chunks of god knows what. Sundress keeps crying and screaming and pushing, and Klaus keeps holding onto those tiny shoulders, pulling them towards himself as quickly and harshly as he dares to. 

Klaus is entirely too aware of the fact that suddenly, he can’t hear a single peep from outside the elevator. Not the shooters, not people begging for their lives, not anything. Nothing at all. Just eerie silence and the occasional footstep. The only thing that’s keeping him from worrying sick about Ben roaming free out there is the all comforting knowledge that he’s already dead. 

He can’t get himself killed again. Klaus figures being a ghost had to have its perks. 

Sundress lets out an especially long shriek, loud and unabashed, and Klaus feels the tiny shoulders he’s holding turn into tiny arms and tiny legs and tiny feet, kicking and squirming and punching with all the might a newborn can probably manage. 

Klaus adjusts his grip and when he finally, finally looks down, “Oh” 

Oh. 

It’s- 

It’s not so gross after all. 

It’s a teeny tiny little baby, with dark eyes and soft hair and it’s _screaming_ its lungs out, covered in blood and guts, but it’s there- _it’s there, it’s there, it’s there!_

It’s wasn’t there a second ago but now it is! 

But now she is. 

God, has Klaus even held a baby before? He’s thinks he hasn’t. 

Klaus maneuvers the baby’s tiny body until she’s lying on the crook of his elbow, pillowed on the fluffy feathers of his leather jacket. She immediately settles, her cries turning into soft whimpers instead of full-blown wails. 

_She’s the prettiest thing ever!_

And honestly, fuck Klaus’ bio-mom, because no matter how gross and upsetting and unsettling and plain disgusting the whole birth thing is, this baby right here? There’s absolutely no way in hell he’d hand her over to someone like Reginald. No way. 

“Is it- is it alright?” Sundress asks, breathing so heavily she’s almost gasping. 

Klaus is reminded that he can’t just sit down and contemplate the wonders of life. It’s really not the time. He nods. “Yeah, I think so. Looks fine to me, let me just-” 

And he digs through his jacket’s pockets, patting the fabric blindly, one handed, as he keeps staring at the baby’s tiny face. 

He digs and digs until he finds what he’s looking for and pulls it out of his pocket. It’s one of Diego’s knives, the one Klaus pocketed after the asshole tried to stab him this morning for this or that. Klaus can’t even remember what they were fighting about. 

He grabs the knife, brings it towards the baby’s still attached umbilical cord, and snaps it in half softly, carefully, mindful of the baby’s movements for any signs of discomfort. “There” he says, cooing, once it’s done. 

The baby blinks lazily up at him, gurgling a low noise on her throat. Klaus takes off his jacket and wraps the baby up in it, passing her along to her mother. “Sundress, sweetheart” Klaus says, fighting off the urge to what- cry? Are those tears threatening to spill down his cheeks? “Your kid’s a looker” 

Sundress sobs, nodding her head, as she adjusts the baby on her arms. “I don’t understand, why- _how?_ ” 

“Oh, honey” Klaus says, whistling. “Why does anything ever happen, really?” 

She glares him. 

That’s fair. 

_“Klaus! Klaus!”_

It’s Ben. 

He’s still out there, in the real world, outside of these four lovely metal walls Klaus’ thinking about adding to his long, long list of traumatic memories to have nightmares about. 

“What’s going on?” Klaus asks, once Ben phases through the doors once again. 

Ben’s looks freaked out, and Ben rarely looks freaked out. Klaus stands up, walks up to him. 

“You need to manifest me, _now_ ” 

“Uh, n- now?” Klaus echoes. Ben is the big guns, and he doesn’t really want to be anywhere near where they need the big guns (-he doesn’t want this new and beautiful baby to be anywhere near where they need the big guns). 

Ben nods desperately, shaking his head up and down in a frantic motion. Klaus watches as he goes to stand in front of him, blocking the elevator’s doors, as if he could somehow shield him from whatever harm with his ghostly ass. 

“I don’t know if I can right now” Klaus tells him. 

He isn’t even lying. 

He hasn’t had a single good night of sleep in forever and it’s not like he can _actually_ manifest Ben on command whenever he wants to. It’s just like a fun and spontaneous thing that only sometimes goes right, because, truly, there are some days when he’ll try and not two seconds later Ben will be there in all his glow-y glory, but then there are other days… 

“Try, now” Ben says. 

Klaus sputters, take a step backwards, “Why?” 

Ben turns to him, opens his mouth to speak, no doubt to say some cryptic shit that won’t clear a single thing up, but then- 

Then Klaus hears it. 

Marching footsteps walking towards them, towards the elevator. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty people, all walking resolutely, with one purpose in mind. It’s got to be the shooters. 

It’s the shooters. 

It’s the shooters, Klaus knows. Klaus knows because he heard the distinct sound of people being shot and killed, and now he’s hearing the distinct sound of people moaning and screaming and waking as ghosts for the very first time. Every single person in the library is dead. Every single person but them. 

And the shooters, of course. 

He swallows, takes a long, hard look at Sundress down in the floor, alternating between staring blankly up at the elevator doors and staring blankly down at her new kid. He looks at Ben, then, at the panicked look on his face. “Okay,” he says, nodding tensely. “Okay, yeah” 

He snaps his eyes shut, breathing deeply. He tries to find that dormant power that hides somewhere deep inside of him, that power that bursts like electricity. It's- 

Nothing happens. 

“Klaus,” Ben mutters, tightly. 

The footsteps get closer and closer, and then come to a halt. 

Right in front of the elevator. 

Sundress chokes out a pained moan, rightfully scared, and the baby bursts into tears- loud wails and whimpers that drown out every other little noise. “Fuck,” Klaus says, in earnest. He tries again. 

Nothing happens. 

There’s a loud _thunk_ , a dull sound accompanied by the elevator shaking and shaking and shaking, and then there’s a wide dent right in the middle of the doors. They’re trying to knock them open. They’re trying to get in. They want every last soul dead. 

The light flickers, for a second, and Klaus swallows a whimper in his throat. 

“Klaus, c’mon!” Ben hisses, shooting him a sharp look. He thinks he can hear the Horror somewhere in there, rumbling with excitement, basking in the knowledge that it’ll be let out to play soon. 

He can hear it, and he can hear the ghosts, moaning and crying, and he can hear the baby’s wails, and her mother’s hitched breathing, and Ben’s foot tapping away, restless, and he can hear the shooters, shuffling about, punching whatever it is they’re punching into the elevator’s doors, again, and again, and again. The lights keep flickering. 

“Klaus!” Ben yells out, desperate. 

Klaus tries, shaking hands and labored breathing- and nothing happens. 

Another hit. 

The elevator rattles, shakes. 

Klaus tries. 

Sundress starts crying then, too- sobbing in time with her daughter, hitching and hiccuping, and she isn’t even looking at anywhere in particular now, too busy staring blankly ahead. 

Klaus tries. 

Ben’s stomach does that funny thing where it looks like it outrightly disappears, leaving nothing but a big patch of emptiness in place- the Horror roars, and moans, and shrieks, begging to be let out already. 

Another hit. 

The elevator rattles, shakes. 

The elevator- 

The elevator’s doors snap open, dented and twisted. They creak, and then, more than actually opening like they’re meant to, they fall apart, hanging loosely from their frame. The elevator jostles, drops down a couple inches before coming to a halt, and then- 

“Oh, shit” Klaus says, and ducks the fuck down. 

It’s- 

It’s the Commission. 

It’s the fucking Commission because of fucking course it is. 

It’s at least twenty men, all clad in combat gear- all bullet proof vests and protective gear, helmets and gloves and guns the size of their fucking heads, and they don’t waste a single second after Klaus drops to the floor to start shooting at random. Bullet, after bullet, after bullet, and Klaus just barely has half a mind to ignore Sundress’ hysterical screaming and throw himself more or less on top of her and the baby, dragging them to the side where the bullets can’t reach them. 

“Klaus!” Ben straight up screams, and the tentacles are already there, flapping about with unceremonious movements, but they aren’t fucking tangible! 

Klaus huffs, annoyed and scared out of his mind, “Yeah, yeah, I’m trying” 

He _tries._

He really tries this time, pouring all of his panic and fright into the feeling, the icy cold feeling that envelops him every single time he does manage to manifest his brother. And then he feels- more than actually seeing, the blue light shining out of his hands, shining bright for a moment before dying out, spluttering and spluttering. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he mutters, as more bullets fly past him. 

He tries, he tries, he tries- 

_“What the fuck?”_

That’s his cue, isn’t? 

He looks up, and there’s Ben, glowing that ethereal blue while wearing a lopsided grin, a twinkle in his eyes that promises nothing but gore and violence. Just like that, the Horror goes to town. 

Klaus snaps his eyes shut for the most of it, too busy trying to keep a steady hold on his powers. He thinks he actually manifests two or three ghosts too many, if the distant shrieking and wailing is anything to go by- not to mention those fun little noises that can’t be anything but a ghost happily mauling away into an already dead corpse. 

It’s truly fascinating, the way the Horror goes through each Commission minion methodically, grabbing and breaking and twisting, ripping away with no care. The ones that aren’t disemboweled in the first thirty seconds scream and cower in fear, knowing they’re next- but it doesn’t stop them from shooting and shooting and shooting, and throwing something Klaus is almost completely sure is a either a very powerful grenade with a crazy long range or a new and fun weapon of their making. 

The Horror roars, either way, angered. 

Klaus almost feels for them- 

No one told them not to make the tentacle monster mad. 

It’s a blur, after that, of screaming and crying and dodging bullets, of wiping other people’s blood off his face and fighting to keep his hands glowing bright- 

He almost doesn’t notice when it’s over. 

The entire place swallowed by an eerie silence, even the ghosts somehow sensing there’s no more havoc to go crazy over. The baby is crying her little lungs out. 

“Klaus,” Ben says, breathing heavily. “Klaus, it’s- you can let go, now” The Horror’s back inside of him, hidden away in its own dimension, where it belongs. 

Klaus lets go. 

He sighs in relief, no longer feeling that pressure around his skull and his chest and his entire being, urging him to keep pushing on and on. Ben stops glowing, and the thin layer of grime and blood that covered him from head to toe drops down through him and into the floor with a wet noise. Klaus grimaces. Ben doesn’t even blink. 

He takes a deep breath, holds it. Lets it go. 

His heartbeat’s going crazy. 

Klaus realizes he’s shaking, laying more or less on top of Sundress and her kid, and he finds it absurdly hilarious that dear ol’ Dad’s lessons on just exactly how to protect a civilian from the line of fire never quite left his brain. He straightens up slowly, scooting over to the side, still on the floor, not quite trusting his legs to keep him upright if he tried. 

“What the fuck,” he mutters, flatly. 

He was under the impression the Commission wasn’t a problem anymore. Five swore up and down the Commission wasn’t a problem anymore- and for Five to be so blatantly mistaken, then something must have gone horribly, horribly wrong. 

He has a feeling that that something has got something to do with the miracle baby. 

“Shit-” Ben says, and Klaus is halfway through thinking up some snarky comeback when he notices there’s an edge, an urgency in his voice- and then he’s kneeling down right beside him. 

Klaus looks around, almost expecting a stray shooter to have survived, but then he realizes. 

Sundress is- 

Sundress is bleeding. 

There’s blood everywhere, of course, courtesy of Ben, and the Horror, and the entire tac team that oh so kindly just got murdered, there’s blood everywhere- 

There’s blood on the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling, and on Klaus’ clothes. There’s even a big chunk of something gooey stuck on his hair that he’s very much not going to think about until he’s standing under a shower spray. There’s- 

There’s blood everywhere. 

There’s blood on Sundress’ chest. 

It’s nearly impossible to tell, red on red on red, but Klaus knows, he knows, he just knows her chest shouldn’t be bloody- not with how he was covering her, the way he was leaning against her. He would’ve gotten shot before she did. He would've died before she did. 

Except- 

Those first few seconds, when he dropped down on instinct- 

They weren’t shooting at him. 

They were shooting at her. 

At her baby. 

Klaus swallows, breathes out something shaky and regretful. “Okay, okay,” he murmurs, because what the hell else can he do, anyway? 

He presses down on her wound with all that he’s got, one handed, ignores the way she whimpers and cries and flails around, and uses his free hand to make sure the baby is alright, to more or less drag her into her mother’s lap and set her neck into the safest position. 

“Ben,” Klaus calls, tightly. “Do you think someone called the cops already? Or am I going to have t-to let go and-” His hands are shaking. His hands are shaking, and he doesn’t want this woman to die. 

Ben stays quiet, for a long while. “I don’t know” 

Klaus nods. 

He doesn’t want this woman to die. 

She’s blinking sluggishly up at him, and it’s a testament of how badly she’s hurt that she doesn’t react in any way whatsoever to Klaus’ chatter. Five minutes ago, she would’ve been happily attempting to set him on fire with a look after catching him talking to what she perceives as thin air, just like most people tend to do. Now she’s unresponsive. Both frigid and limp. 

Klaus does his best not to think about the last time he had his hands on a bullet wound. 

Time seems to slow down, second after second trickling by. Klaus doesn’t allow himself to look anywhere but at the thick trail of blood squeezing past his fingertips- 

There’s a cluster of necklaces hanging from Sundress’ neck, intertwined chains with pretty charms and pendants. They’re stained red. Klaus grabs them (most of them, anyway- there’s only so much he can do one handed and when everything’s slippery and wet and so very warm). He grabs them, and slowly pushes them up and away from the wound, towards Sundress’ face, fearing they’ll get stuck, somehow, fearing they’ll end up hurting her further. 

Almost out of habit, almost not to break into hysterics, Klaus makes a point of ignoring Ben’s frantic muttering of _“shit, shit, shit, shit-”_ settling on pressing a little bit harder into the bloody mess beneath him and cataloging the necklaces’ many charms in his head. 

There’s a butterfly with a blue sapphire. Pretty. He thinks he might have stolen (and pawned, probably) something similar of Allison’s when they were fifteen or so. There’s an electric guitar. Silver. Plain. He wonders if she plays or if she just thought the charm was nice enough to look at. There’s one, two, three empty chains, thin and delicate- classy, he’d say. There’s a fun little thing with green beads and some gemstones. There’s a- 

There’s a star of David. 

Thin, and frail, and probably not all that expensive. 

If he ignores the way it’s slick with blood, tainted red, hanging of a strange woman’s neck- if he ignores all that, then he thinks Dave- 

_(Dave)._

He thinks Dave had a pendant almost exactly like that one. 

A family heirloom, he had said. Klaus remembers asking, absentmindedly, almost unthinkingly, why he didn’t wear it around his neck. No reason, he had said, no reason, really- it's an old habit, kinda like a tradition I would say. My grandpop always had my ma hide it, then my ma had _me_ hide it. 

Those had been a sleepless couple of nights, spend wondering whether it’d be worth it opening the briefcase at random just on the off chance it’d spit him out sometime in 1940, rifle in hand, ready to aim at anything wearing red and black around their arms. 

There’s a star of David. 

Klaus does his best not to think about the last time he had his hands on a bullet wound. 

His heartbeat’s going crazy. His hands are shaking. 

He’s- 

Sundress chokes out some gurgling noise, wet and uncomfortable, barely audible, drowned in the ghosts’ wailing, the baby’s wailing. Then there’s blood pouring out from in between her lips, and- 

“No,” Klaus blurts, louder than he intended. “No, no, shit-” he turns to Ben, pleading, knowing there’s nothing he can do but pleading anyway. 

Ben shakes his head, unsure. 

A sob makes its way out of his throat, against his will, and Klaus is- 

Klaus definitely thinking about the last time he had his hands on a bullet wound. 

He straightens up, pushing down, putting his weight on it. What is someone supposed to do in these cases, anyway? More pressure? Less pressure? He knows what he’s been taught, and what he’s been taught is to scream for help, scream for Mom, and scream for an ambulance, and scream for a medic, and that’s never been any fucking help whatsoever, has it? 

What is someone supposed to do? 

What is he supposed to do? 

“Klaus,” Ben says, and there’s urgency there, again. Klaus ignores him, doesn’t look up. “Klaus, wait, do you- do you hear that?” 

He doesn’t bother replying. He can’t hear much of anything, with how loud the baby’s crying, how loud the ghosts are crying. Even Ben’s voice fighting to be heard. 

Besides, besides- 

Sundress’ eyes stop their frantic movement and instead get that glossy look, unseeing, not quite dead but somewhere near, and Klaus can’t stand it, he just can’t stand it, not in the slightest. 

What is he supposed to do? 

Ben stands up, abruptly, walking out of the elevator. 

Klaus almost whimpers, almost begs him to stay. Because truly, truly, truly- what the hell is he even supposed to do, now? Whatever it is, he doesn’t think he even wants to think about doing it alone, without Ben, without his brother. 

It’s too much. 

It’s too much, Klaus decides, suddenly. 

It’s too much and he feels like he’s eight years old and locked away in the mausoleum, and he feels like he’s tied into a chair in a no-stars motel room, and he feels like he’s shooting a gun at faceless soldiers, innocent, wrongfooted, just like him, and he feels like he’s uselessly pressing his hands into a gaping hole in Dave’s chest that won’t ever heal again. 

He doesn’t know how much time goes by, only knows the endless red seeping underneath his fingertips, the constant wailing around him. 

He doesn’t know how much time goes by, but then Ben’s there, back, afraid. “Klaus,” he says, sounding tired, exasperated even. “There’s more people coming- they're down the street, I saw them” 

Klaus- nods, jerkily, just to acknowledge the words even if he doesn’t quite understand their meaning, their implication. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from Sundress’ eyes. Her breathing sounds more and more laborious each second, more pained. 

He doesn’t want her to die. 

Ben’s standing beside him, looking at him. He seems to take in the fact that Klaus isn’t paying all that much attention, and he lets the silence stretch uncomfortably. “Can you manifest me again?” 

“Again?” Klaus echoes, distantly. “I- shit, no. No, I can’t” 

That, he knows for sure. 

He couldn’t, even if his life depended on it. 

_(Ha! It does)._

“Fuck,” Ben mutters, and Klaus more or less agrees. He groans, sighs, huffs, in that specific way of his that only ever means he’s far more scared that he wants to let on. “They’re going to kill you” 

Klaus laughs, a little hysterically. “You think?” 

“You need- you need to leave, right now” 

Klaus turns to look at him so fast he almost gets whiplash, his neck stretching uncomfortably. “What the fuck did you just say?” 

Ben isn’t looking at him. He’s staring at Sundress, at the wound in her chest. “She’s not- Klaus, even if by some miracle you manage to keep her alive, the second the Commission gets here they’re going to kill her,” Klaus clenches his jaw, looks away. “And then you, and then the baby” 

“I’m waiting until an ambulance gets here” 

“Klaus,” Ben starts, tiredly. 

Sundress lets out another pained moan. They both turn to look at her. 

Klaus breathes in, and breaths out, and uselessly tries to convince himself everything will magically turn out fine, “I’m waiting until an ambulance gets here” he repeats, voice wobbly. 

“There’s no ambulance,” Ben says, calmly. “There won’t be an ambulance until the cops get here, and the cops won’t get here until the Commission lets them. There’s no- Klaus, there’s no help coming, you need to leave before they get here” 

Klaus shakes his head, swallows a sob. 

“Please,” Ben breathes. “Please, Klaus. She’s got a bullet to her chest, she’s not going to make it, anyway- you know that. I know you know that” 

Does he know, now? 

Klaus _knows._

He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows because he knows Dave and he knows the shape of his smile and his eyes and his arms, and just the way he’d whisper sweet nonsense against his neck late at night, the way he laughed and kissed and loved, and more than anything else, more than anything else, he knows the shape of that goddamned mess in the middle of his chest, the blood and the gore, merciless, knows that bullet, knows the way it ripped and tore and _killed._

He’s crying now, he thinks. 

Ben’s kneeling beside him, his eyes big and wet. “Please, Klaus” 

Klaus keeps shaking his head, side to side to side. 

The baby’s crying, wailing, her face red with the effort, kicking her little legs around. He wonders if he himself cried like that when he was born, nestled in his mother’s arms, afraid and uncomfortable, somehow knowing deep in his bones those first few minutes would be the only time he’d ever get to be around her in his entire miserable existence. He wonders. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice wet, the words barely recognizable. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m s-so-” 

He isn’t all that sure who he’s apologizing to, though. Sundress? For not protecting her like he could’ve, like he was trained to do since he first learned how to walk? The kid? For making sure her very first day out in the world was a shit one? Ben? Dave? Himself? He’s just- 

“Klaus,” Ben hisses, and then there are heavy footsteps somewhere outside- an occasional scream, a gunshot. It’s another little army. 

He’s tired. 

He’s just so tired. 

He doesn’t allow himself to think about what he’s doing all that hard, he just watches, detachedly, his sobbing uncontained, as his hands move away from Sundress’ chest, a trail of sticky warm blood between them. Sundress twitches, and he thinks there might still be enough recognition on her eyes for her to know exactly what’s going on. 

“Ben,” Klaus moans, crying and crying and crying. 

The footsteps keep getting closer. 

Ben doesn’t reply, doesn’t say anything at all. That’s okay, though, Klaus thinks, that’s okay. There’s nothing he could say that’d make things any better. 

His hands are shaking, harder than before, but he ignores them, ignores the slippery red smeared everywhere, ignores the pounding in his head, and the tears and the snot, and the pressure tight around his throat and his heart that feels like it’s going to swallow him whole. 

He grabs the baby, carefully. Then stands up, his knees wobbling under his weight. 

Ben stands up, too. Alert, like a guard dog, looking out for threats, looking after him as if he could actually do something if things came to that. 

Klaus blinks up at him for a couple seconds, wishing fervently, deliriously, wishing he was alive with a sort of intensity he hadn’t felt since the very first time he realized he was dead. Is it selfish of him, to sometimes wish it had been somebody else? Anyone else. Anyone but Ben. 

Is it selfish? 

There’s a noise then, coming from downstairs. Barging doors, marching footsteps. 

The Commission’s goons got here, already. 

They haven’t found him yet though, and Klaus is going to take full advantage of that. He takes a shaky breath, in and out, sniffling, swallowing his cries and his whimpers, and he rocks the baby, willing her to be quiet, be still. 

She settles, more or less. 

Klaus keeps rocking her anyway. 

He very pointedly does not look back, look down, because if he did, he’s not all that sure he wouldn’t leave all reasoning aside, all instincts to survive and protect and live on. He’s not all that sure he could bring himself to leave Sundress’ _(Dave’s Dave’s Dave’s)_ side ever again if he laid his eyes on her one more time. 

He does not look back. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, one more time, voice butchered, just on the off chance she can still hear him, understand him. “I’m so sorry” 

He squeezes the baby close to his chest, and then it’s just a matter of climbing out of the elevator, awkwardly hefting himself up after realizing the thing is lodged halfway between two floors, a good foot and some inches of the floor below completely visible. 

He ends up having to step over bodies, chunks of blood and guts, still warm- some the Commission’s tac team, some unrecognizable- random civilians, dead only because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a mess. Klaus holds his breath, tries not to breathe in the horrible stench of death. He assumes everything that moves to be a ghost, and he trusts Ben to tell him when it isn’t. 

The goons with guns don’t find them, too busy scouting the first floor, and before he knows it, Klaus blinks, Klaus blinks, and suddenly he’s standing outside, on some alley, and he figures he must have jumped out of some window if the way his ankle is shrieking is anything to go by, but- 

He doesn’t remember. 

“Klaus!” Ben’s hissing, urgent, and Klaus frowns. “Klaus, c’mon, you need to keep moving!” 

He doesn’t like it, not remembering. 

His hands are shaking. 

You need to keep moving, Ben’s voice carries, from somewhere far away, underwater. You need to keep moving, please, before they find you, they’re going to kill you, you need to run, please- 

There’s a faint ringing in his ears- from all the gunfire, probably. The last time he had someone shoot a gun so close to his head was a lifetime ago, in Vietnam, in the front lines, in target practice, in the barracks. Whenever they messed around with guns like that, he’d end up losing most of his hearing for a couple days, weeks. But it was alright. 

Everyone was half-deaf in Vietnam, anyway. 

Here, though? What is he going to do, if the ringing doesn’t go away? 

That, topped with the ghosts? He’s never going to understand anyone, ever. 

There’s a dull noise from up above, and it startles him. He jumps, almost drops the baby in a split-second when doesn’t quite remember what he’s holding. 

He feels like he should be doing something. 

“Klaus,” Ben’s saying. 

Klaus, Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. 

Please, please, Klaus, please, they’re going to kill you- 

The baby gurgles, whimpers something uncomfortable, low in her throat, and Klaus’ doesn’t know much of anything but he thinks it might mean she’s not feeling all that great. If she starts crying again, then they’re going to find them. 

That wouldn’t be good. 

That really, really wouldn’t be good. 

Klaus takes a deep breath, in and out. “Ben?” 

Ben swims in his vision, all furrowed brows and concerned expression. “Just run, Klaus, please” 

Klaus runs. 

He runs, and he runs, and he runs, and he doesn’t stop running. He jumps over some fences, steps over some lawns. He runs, not looking back once, not stopping, never stopping. The baby starts wailing at some point, screaming- very clearly not liking one bit the whole being jostled about thing, and maybe Klaus should stop right then and there, check her over, but he doesn’t 

Ben told him to run, and so he does. 

He waits until he doesn’t have a single doubt left that the Commission’s goons didn’t follow, and even then, he doesn’t quite stop. He keeps sprinting, lightly, looking around at unfamiliar buildings and unfamiliar streets, and when he spots a taxi, he makes a run for it, all too aware he doesn’t have a single dollar on him but not caring anyway. He can figure that out later. 

Klaus waits for Ben to hop on first, and then he all but throws himself into the backseat of the car, mindlessly rattling off the Academy’s address in between taking big gulps of air. 

The baby’s crying. 

Klaus rocks her. 

She doesn’t stop crying. 

Ben’s hunched over, rubbing his hands all over his face. The next step’s probably pulling the hood up, going silent, barely blinking at anything going on around him. 

Klaus never knows what to do, when Ben goes like that. 

The driver clears his throat awkwardly, twists around just long enough to shoot Klaus a concerned glance. “Son,” he starts, sounding very stern and very disappointed. “Did you just steal that baby?” 

Did he? 

He isn’t sure. 

**Author's Note:**

> Do we want more of this? Asking for a friend. 
> 
> If so, this would turn into a crossover with ??? something ???? I googled jewish heroines and the only ones I recognize are like... Harley Quinn and Scarlet Witch.. so.. yeah. 
> 
> follow me on tumblr @myeyesarenotblue


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